Middle Eastern

I first ate a version of this wonderful dish at Gilaneh restaurant in Tehran, on a late spring day at the end of May, weeks before Iran’s presidential election and the disputed voting results that brought turmoil to the city.

On that day, nothing could have been more peaceful than lunch by an open window two stories above a bustling street: lamb kebabs, chicken in a tangy pomegranate sauce and a dish of beans in a buttery sauce tinted pale yellow from turmeric and flecked with garlic and dill.

To add a layer of complexity, hummus can be topped with either warm fava beans (called ful), toasted pine nuts, or more tahini, which is ladled into the center and sometimes doused with an aromatic olive oil. Stewed fava beans over hummus are a revelation atop a revelation: earthy, pepper-tinged, and meaty without a trace of meat.

In this dish the two robust beans slug it out, both vying for your palate’s attention, neither ever quite vanquishing the other. It’s a fight you’re happy to have waged in your mouth. In pursuit of a recipe for the fava beans,

Lokshen kugel is an important part of Jewish holiday tables. This sweet, creamy, eggy noodle pudding is a standard menu item at the meal next Monday night after a day of fasting on Yom Kippur. My mother, with whom I consult about traditional dishes before I begin cooking, was at the supermarket checkout line in Miami, with ingredients for her pudding on the belt. The woman in line behind her offered some unsolicited advice. “I make the best noodle pudding around,’’ she announced.

This is an easy salad to add to a buffet. Couscous, which only needs to be soaked in boiling water for a few minutes, is delightful with crunchy vegetables and a lemony dressing.

If you’ve ever had a latke lovingly prepared by your mother, grandmother, or any other relative, it may have tasted delicious but chances are it was a ghoulishly gray color. Potatoes begin to turn a grayish brown minutes after peeling. But keep your latkes pure ivory by working them with the onions. Most latkes share a strikingly similar list of ingredients: potatoes, onions, matzo meal, eggs, and salt. This recipe is no different. But here, we use a food processor instead of a box grater to grind the potatoes and onions together.